The CAD Insider

Autodesk Rules at NAFEMS

Sep 12, 2012, WASHINGTON DC (NAFEMS NA Conference) - All the heavyweights in the CAE world were lined up in the front of the room, ANSYS, MSC, Dassault, Siemens PLM and others in what was to be a panel Q&A. I thought there was going to be a battle. I had my eyes on Autodesk.

NAFEMS panel from left: Louis Komzsik, Bill Wheeler, Andrew Hintz, Gilles Eggenspieler, Dan'l Pierce, John Twerdok, Ed Ladzinski

Autodesk had just dropped a bomb at NAFEMS North America, annual gathering place of analysts, those who make a living from stress, fluid, thermal, electromagnetic calculations – if not by hand or calculator, then with estoric and expensive programs whose prerequisites may well be a PhD as well as years of training and use before true expertise is obtained. In the not so distant past, they alone had access to hulking mainframe computer or had accounts with supercomputer services that charged by the CPU second. It wasn’t cheap.

Into this annual summit of CAE, hallowed ground for the priests of prediction, Autodesk introduced Simulation 360. It was cloud based, so you don't need to have a supercomputer. Autodesk will supply them. You don’t need to spend tens of thousands of dollars up front. Autodesk will rent the software. You don’t have a PhD in engineering? Where have you been, poor fellow? Autodesk has for a couple of years been insisting that just about anyone can use simulation tools – at least the ones they offer.

I expected the illustrious panel to be preoccupied with the Autodesk’s audacity, or at least shun the CAD vendor. How dare this new kid play with the big boys? The new kid should have got beat up. But the new kid was rich. Autodesk is a $2.5B company.

Guess who had the biggest booth at NAFEMs? Yup, Autodesk. In its shadow, even the industry stalwart, ANSYS, tells me how great it is that Autodesk is here. They are educating the people about the value of analysis. Money talks. The marketing director of NAFEMS, no doubt buoyed by the money Autodesk has pumped into his conference, dismissed a concern over a CAD user being dangerously ill-equipped to practice CAE as “bogus.” This was a PE, sworn to protect the public. 

The panelists’ collective lack of concern was obvious as they promoted their own products. How great they were. They talked of accuracy, convergence...they were like big grazing animals who don’t see the predator in their midst. Any recognition of Autodesk was respectful, bordering on reverential. Autodesk seemed to be bending the CAE community with their will in some kind of mind trick. The force was great. So often I heard CAE vendors talk of “democratization,” a word which I credit Autodesk for creating, a word I can barely pronounce, but one that was rolling off CAE vendors' tongues -- by the very companies it was going to hurt. Like cattle being led to slaughter singing praise of beef.

Autodesk has spent $500M over the last few years acquiring CAE technology. It now bills itself also as a simulaton company (See Autodesk Hints of a CAE Office, on CAD Insider). How long before we are all believers?

The SolidWorks Way

WALTHAM, MA (SolidWork Media Event), Sep 6, 2012 - Unlike previous SolidWorks media events, we are given less dazzle. Hot topics of “cloud” and “green” are only mentioned when asked about, and then downplayed. Wait...the only cloud was mentioned but it was about balloon clouds used in 2D drawings.

Bertrand Sicot, CEO, addresses the press and bloggers at SolidWorks annual press event.

We were treated to a host of enhancements in the core product SolidWorks (though mercifully not all 350 of them) as well as 2 big new addons for electrical and mold flow. Most conspicuous in its absence was competitor bashing, which seems to have become the norm at press events at other vendors.

As CEO Sicot tells us, “It’s not the “SolidWorks Way.”

SolidWorks seems to have the high road all to itself, while traffic snarls below. With a position of market leadership in MCAD, it is (for now) content to allow others to criticize, to stir up trouble, cast fear and doubt. Others brag of SolidWorks users who defect to their brand, I hear from one prominent SolidWorkers that hundreds are doing the opposite, may be too numerous to mention. “We’re just not going to play that game,” he says.

But CEO Sicot let us know at the press event that “half of all sales are from new accounts.” We just shouldn’t expect a press release every time that happens.

Has it always been that way with SolidWorks? It may be in the company’s DNA, if I may use the common marketing parlance. The way it quietly supports noble causes, from Rwanda* to the PMC (raising funds for cancer research) to helping inner city youth to baby incubators made out of old auto parts for the 3rd world. Withour any “Hey, look at me, how good I am.” Would a company like that trash the competition?  No, I don’t think so.

SolidWorks is in there somewhere. The Dassault Systemes campus in Waltham, MA.

In fact, with this event, the SolidWorks way may signal a return to basics, to customer needs and its core expertise. Whereas in previous years, where the company got way ahead of its own users, essentially telling them what was important (clouds), what was good for them (going green), we are hearing about better tools that users are actually asking for.

SolidWorks 2013 introduces new ways to make conic sections, which previously had to be constructed with B-splines. In another example, users of a previous release (SolidWorks 2012) can -–for the first time -- read models from the current release. Dozens of improvemements enfold, including "delighters," which they hope will generate applause at the upcoming SolidWorks World in Orlando. Many changes have to do with 2D drawings. Does it have the glamor of green? The loftiness of clouds? No. But necessary? I think so.

Is this a deliberate move to solidify (pun intended) its user base? Back to basics, a re-focus? A quiet and dignified answer to its harshest and loudest critics?

We’ve all spent a year since the last SolidWorks press event listening to contrary voices. The kernel change will blow your models out of the water. Direct modeling is the answer and history-based is dead. The parade of defecting users. The end is near, their voices rising, in chorus.

SolidWorks stands firm. They respond quietly, with dignity, with numbers. Quarter after quarter of rising sales, almost 2 million users… Not exactly an epitath. But a company that is strong, still a leader, therefore the envy of others. 

David Stott, CFO, shows the climb to 2 million users. Granted, 1.4 million are in schools, but still, which CAD company wouldn't want these numbers?

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*SolidWorks provides financial support to Innovate3D, Roopinder's other company.

Gian Paolo Bassi – SolidWorks 2013 Best Release Ever

We get that a lot. But it’s usually from the marketing folk. They have to make over-the-top claims. It’s some kind of law. But here was technologist, Gian Paolo Bassi, VP of R&D who, despite having joined SolidWorks one year hence, was insisting that SolidWorks 2013 was the best release in 15 years.

Was it bluster, over excitement, too many expressos? May be the first big release since you took office is exciting. Should I fault the father of his first born for bragging?

Gian Paolo Bassi, VP of R&D revealing all that is important about SolidWorks 2013

If you think the head of R&D for a CAD software company should be a nerd, Gian Paolo is only too quick to dispense with the stereotype. He made his public debut with SolidWorks at their annual user meeting in February (SolidWorks World 2012). He had only just joined the company but already had called a press conference. The press had been whipped up in a frenzy from various sources (competitors mostly) about SolidWorks abandoning its longstanding geometry engine (Parasolid) in favor of the CATIA kernel (see SolidWorks: the Kernel Change). Gian Paolo was fending question after question. No, that was not the case, he assured us. He was confident without being brash, smooth without being slippery. It was an admirable blend of knowledge and reassurance that belied his short stint

Now, at the introduction of SolidWorks 2013, he already knew us. If not from SolidWorks World, then from the press dinner the evening before. It was a catered clam bake, and we were getting whole Maine lobsters. (I know…tough life, right?) . Gian Paolo had polished off 3 lobsters all by himself. This was no shy CAD executive – many won’t even have drink around us. Here was a man afraid of neither press or lobster. He is now legend among us.

A lobster hides in vain from Gian Paolo. SolidWorks treated press to a clambake in its new Waltham campus. 

A natural in front of a room, Gain Paolo has been given more of a public role - certainly more than his predecessor, Austin O’Malley. He has built his team, appointing a new head of Q&A and revitalizing the Beta testing program. Gian Paolo introduces me to Justin Kidder, promoted from his post in simulation to Q&A director. While the true test of a CAD program is in the hands of the user, the Beta program results seem promising. The 4,600 beta downloads actually in use are 30% higher with SolidWorks 2012, due to a more ambitious outreach to the user community. But the number of errors reported is 60% of what they were for SolidWorks 2012 at the same point in development. I see Graham Rae, who heads the Beta program (and is a heckuva bike rider) who tells me the number of beta testers is 2 to 3 times that of the previous release.

Though we need to see the reaction of users and customers to SolidWorks 2013 (release date is Monday, Sep 10), Gian Paolo certainly makes a convincing and reassuring case for its success.

Siemens PLM - We're Just One Big Happy Family

BOSTON, MA (Siemens PLM 2012 Analyst Conference), Sep 5, 2012 - In the race to be everything to everyone, Siemens PLM may be winning. The company known best for NX and Teamcenter was riding high on the shoulders of Siemens AG, the German juggernaut that seems to make just about everything. Maybe not cars or airplanes, but so much of what goes inside them.

"We eat our own cooking," says CEO Chuck Grindstaff. Siemens PLM relies and benefits from use by its parent company. Image courtesy of SIemens.

I'm listening to a Siemens presentation about its automotive products that include its embedded systems -- those black boxes that your neighborhood mechanic hates but you love because, with their millions of lines of code, your modern marvel of a car beeps as it nears the curb, avoids collisions, parks itself and will soon enough let you read the morning paper while it takes you to work. By itself.

While other CAD  vendors (Dassault, PTC in particular) may claim to provide all the software tools an engineer, designer or machinist may need, Siemens PLM may be alone in providing so many industries both software and hardware.

In fact, in all the presentations I am hearing at this annual anlayst meeting, hardly any distinction is being made between Siemems PLM and other divisions of Siemens. Siemen PLM's CEO Chuck Grindstaff is mentioning many of the other divisions, like he has been issued a mandate to play nicely with the other kids.

This gives Siemens PLM a big competitive advantage. Not only can the other divisions be NX and Teamcenter users  with their tens of thousands of engineers (I would hope they already are), but more importantly, they can go to many potential customers with a confident swagger. In so many industries, they already walk the walk.

We all know energy is a hot topic. It's also a growing industry. The Siemens side of the sales call may go like this: "Yeah, we do that. Siemens Energy. It's a big division. What do you want, turbines? Gas or steam? Oh, you want renewable energy? Who doesn't these days? We got hydropower...wind. Actually, a whole line of wind turbines. Yes, of course, they are designed with NX.

Or, as CEO Grindstaff put it, "We eat our own cooking."

Sure is nice to be part of such a big family -- a family in which, now more than ever, the members are looking out for each other.